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More than a decade ago, the Texas Legislative Assembly adopted a revolutionary law to do justice when the scientific evidence of a criminal conviction changed or were discredited.
But in a report examining the calls excluded in the decade since then, Texas Defender Service Found last year that The so-called junk food law “does not work as the intention of the Texas Legislative Assembly” and that the courts applied a burden of evidence which made almost impossible for the appellants to meet. For some legislators, the detainee of the Texas corridor, Robert Roberson, has become the face of this failure.
On Wednesday, Texas House sought to rectify these shortcomings. The legislators have been approved preliminary, 118 to 10, Bill 115 of the Chamber – legislation which would codify a certain number of advanced recommendations to ensure that the independent science law works as provided.
“I want to emphasize that this is a critical bill and I would appreciate your favorable consideration,” said representative David Cook, R-Mansfield and author of the bill, during a hearing of the end of evening committee last month.
The measure, which must pass another vote in the House as a formality, has no companion in the Senate, making its way towards the law.
The proposal came out of a controversial temporary period of the Legislative Assembly last year, during which the Chamber’s Criminal Jurisprudence Committee was confronted The case of dressersonConsidered by certain legislators as the face of the failure of Texas to properly implement the law on independent sciences. The argument for the innocence of Dress has become a Political lightning rodAs members of the Committee have taken extraordinary measures To delay its execution from October while Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton rejected And stood behind the conviction.
Roberson was found guilty of capital murder in 2003 for the death of her 2 -year -old daughter, Nikki, who was diagnosed with Baby Spaken syndrome. He was one of the first detainees of the death sentence to have his sentence for a more in -depth examination under the law on the chartered sciences in 2016, when the criminal appels ordered to a lower court to throw a second examination of his case.
But in 2023, after the state argued that science had not changed much and that a court of first instance agreed, the criminal court of appeal confirmed the condemnation of Roberson and set a date of execution of October 17, 2024.
The legislators, concerned about the fact that the courts were not significantly engaged with the evidence and correctly applied the law on unwanted sciences, succeeded in forge a stay execution in October. The Dressing Date of Roberson has not yet been reset and it has a pending call.
However, supporters of HB 115 declared that the bill was aimed at dealing with broader gaps in law – whatever its request in the case of dresserson. If it is adopted, its provisions would not come into force until December 1.
The law on ordinance sciences – Article 11.073 in the Texas Criminal Code – intended to provide a means for convicted people to obtain new trials if they can show that the underlying scientific evidence in their conviction was wrong. The legislators massively approved the bill in 2013 after two unsuccessful attempts to do so.
“It was a commitment to Texans that science in our criminal trials was not only a sword of the State, but also a shield for unjustly convicted and unjust prosecution,” said Chase Baumgartner, a lawyer for the Texas Innocence Committee, testified to the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee of the Chamber last. “Bill 115 of the Chamber reaffirms this commitment and brings together where our current law has failed.”
The measure would tackle many of the interim committee concerns about the law. This would authorize the accused at low income to a lawyer on appeal in unwanted sciences and would oblige the highest criminal tribunal in the State to issue a written opinion when he refuses an appeal in science of junk food.
This would also allow the court to examine calls in junk food even if they do not meet certain procedural requirements, a provision intended to address the conclusion that the criminal court of appeal rejected Almost 40% of petitions On procedural reasons, without considering the merits of complaints.
This would also specify that the law on junk food requires that appellants simply show that their condemnation was based on discredited science – and not to prove their innocence. The bill changes the standard of evidence to a “reasonable probability” that the evidence “could have affected” the conviction or the sentence of a person.
This is a lower bar for people condemned to Claire that the current standard of the law, which says that “on the preponderance of evidence”, the defendant “would not have been condemned” on the basis of demystified science. Critics said that it was practically the same standard necessary to prove “real innocence” – a difficult case, especially for people behind bars.
“The current standard has been interpreted by the Court of Criminal Calls to essentially demand the elimination of any rational basis of the conviction, which is the real legal standard of innocence,” said Burke Butler, Executive Director of Texas Defender Service last month. “This is not at all what the legislators wanted when they initially adopted the law, and for various reasons, this standard is in fact impossible for most innocent people.”
And the bill extend the law on junk food to accept relevant evidence which was not reasonably available “for the defendant at the trial, and who” tends to deny “scientific evidence” invoked by the State “at the trial.
In his reportThe Texas Defender Services found that no one in the death corridor has successfully used the law on junk food to obtain a new trial. The report also concluded that the Court of Criminal Calls had applied a higher standard of evidence than that required by law, rejected a significant part of appeal for procedural reasons and produces “omnipresent lack” of written opinions explaining its justification, said Butler.
“No innocent should never serve a prison sentence without her file having been considered on the merits,” she said. “The fixes in HB 115 would ensure that the innocent people condemned on the basis of the science of junk food have a real relief path.”
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